Ayano Ayanokouji
Ayano Ayanokouji (綾小路文乃, Ayanokouji Ayano) is a student of Mana Central High. Profile Background Ayano was brought up as the successor to her family's magecraft, and was instructed by her father to prioritize magecraft over her own interests. Ten years ago, her father was killed, Ayano continued to improve her abilities with some guidance from her mother. The rights to the lands were inherited by Ayano after her father's death. Her mother managed them as Ayano's guardian, and because of her foolhardy and coarse management, the majority of profitable properties ended up in the hands of others. It is possible that her mother believed the wealth was bad for her upbringing due to following the principles of humility and poverty. Appearance AyanoSeifuku.jpg|Ayano (School Uniform) KagamineKagami.jpg|Ayano (Combat Outfit) Aya-chan.jpg|Ayano (Charmed) AyanoCasualGlasses.jpg|Ayano (Wearing Mystic Eye Deafeners and cheap clothes) AyanoYandereFace.jpg|Ayano (Charmed) Ayano appears as a thin woman with long white hair and piercing gray eyes. She wore a female school uniform for the majority of her first week at Mana Central. However, when Adaque stole the uniform, she was forced to buy cheap clothes at a run down store, and wore those for another week. When Orsin began wearing Mystic Eye Killers, Ayano traced a weaker version of them, and wore them as a precaution against his seduction abilities. After Orsin had stabbed her and stained her cheap clothes with blood, she went to the shopping district, and bought nicer clothes. Personality She has a cold, heartless, and merciless personality, appearing to care about nothing, but occasionally reacts in surprisingly feminine ways. She hates both herself and other people, developing her cold personality as a result. She secretly wishes to experience the happiness of a normal person.Due to an impulse to kill, she tried to feel a sense of living through killing, but never succeeded due to various accidents and benevolent obstructions. With her uncertain sense of living, she listlessly continues to go to school on a daily basis. She declined a bracelet that would nullify her abilities which would allow her to live a normal life. It could be seen as a sign of how self abusive she is, or it could be called an episode that reflected her heart of clear water.While her mother put a large amount of money into constructing it, she simply shoved it back, saying "Why should I do it to please you?" Her reasoning for declining was the same as refusing to wear a uniform, in that she thought it looked ridiculous on herself.She has an animalistic view towards other people, dividing them into two categories regardless of good or evil. Deciding based upon"those she can be with" and "those she can not be with", she will stay with someone "she can be with" even if she hates them.Milk Tea is one of the few things she was fond of, but it's also one of the things that she hates. She despises cold food and drinks,but always seems to buy it from the convenience store. Abilities During combat, Ayano wears a cloak and mantle set that are first rate Conceptual Weapons made from the Holy Shroud of a saint. It does not oppose enemies, but instead the external environment. Due to her nature, she copies other fighters' weapons rather than using her own. This makes her a confusing existence for her opponents, displaying her projection that turns normally important signature weapons into items that can be discarded and destroyed on a whim, varied abilities that would normally mark the fighting style of an opponent, and contradictory abilities. Combat Ayano’s basic abilities are subpar compared to other fighters. Her main strength lies within her versatility and adaptability. Her exceptional use of tactics and battle experience make her combat style very distinct from those of others. Her strength does not come from natural talent, but instead from single-minded refining of what little talent she had. She had no strengths at first, and through improving herself for the reason that she was not extraordinary, her techniques trained by will alone reached the point where she could be naturally considered strong. She is not fixated on the exact method of winning,opening many possibilities not available to those who fight with chivalry and codes of honor. Vijñaptimātratā is her sole magecraft, allowing for the use of Reinforcement and Projection. It includes the “all the elements necessary to shape swords”, allowing for the replication of Noble Phantasms. All weapons are copied upon seeing them once, she has thousands stored as of entering Mana Central, and all can be freely deployed. Many varieties of weapons can be summoned for melee combat, though she primarily utilizes Gān Jiàng and Mò Yé. Swords can also be summoned and modified to be fired as arrows and utilized as Broken Phantasms by overloading them with energy to generate overwhelming destructive power from exploding upon contact. She can fight in a variety of ways depending on the situation, allowing her to match or even exceed other fighters even without an actual ability of her own. Utilizing Broken Phantasms requires for the destruction of an incredibly strong enchanted weapon, so it is not something able to be utilized by a normal fighter without sacrificing their strength. Due to her being able to replicate as many weapons as she wishes, the use of Broken Phantasms became a trump card available only to her. She can turn the odds in her favor by assaulting melee Servants with such long range attacks. Even if she attempts to replicate an Excalibur-class holy sword, she does not have the magical energy necessary to bring out its full potential. Close combat Though she is an archer, which focuses on long range combat, she is adept at melee combat, and due to her wish to conceal her trump card, she mainly focuses on melee tactics, primarily utilizing Gān Jiàng and Mò Yé when engaging opponents. Even if told to fight seriously by utilizing a bow as expected of an archer, she'd continue to rush into close combat without intentions to draw her bow. She will also use other weapons like Caladbolg to thrust at the opponent's heart or Durandal to perform powerful strikes. Gān Jiàng and Mò Yé are her preferred weapons, and her usage of them has allowed her to develop a style of fighting perfectly suited to her. Though she can fight with a single blade, she generally wields them both at once. The advantage of projection allows for her to replace swords if they are destroyed or if she is disarmed. She has no trouble projecting twenty-eight pairs during a strenuous clash consisting of over a hundred strikes and constantly being disarmed. Her greatest strategy involves utilizing multiple projected pairs in succession to completely seal the opponent. Ranged combat Ayano utilizes a bow that she projects when she does make use of projectiles, which, along with her armor, is made from a special material. Ayano's bow is a matte black, western-style straight bow, with a simple design that was constructed to be resistant enough to fire Noble Phantasms. It is a completely original weapon, a projection whose structure and composition is not directly taken from another's bow. She often uses regular arrows for quick and accurate attacks that cost less magical energy than Noble Phantasms. Releasing over a dozen arrows at once, they are accurately fired at the opponent whether as a sneak attack or support for another. She is capable of performing Broken Phantasm shots from various distances, from hundreds of meters away up to four kilometers away from the target. Her Clairvoyance is a visual ability that affects the accuracy of bows, allows her to execute her "ultra long-range sniping" precisely even against targets moving at high speeds as long as they are within a four kilometer range. With accuracy transcending the realm of mortals, it is an ability often used for scouting that is able to fully survey the town simply upon looking down from a high location. Utilizing the "must-have ability" of an archer, such strikes greatly differ from her regular arrows, and they are a means to certainly kill the opponent. Differing from her former Japanese shooting method, nocking the arrow in the palm of the left hand, Ayano utilizes the traditional European method of nocking the arrow over the back of the left hand. She is skilled enough to mark two enemies and fire a single arrow with the intention of striking both, surpassing the normal rules being unable to alter its course. She can make use of specific strategies to defeat opponents from long range who would not fall in single combat easily even inside Vijñaptimātratā. Burdening them with continuous attacks and keeping them from utilizing all of their abilities, she is free to fire upon them without worry of being counterattacked and increase the power each time. If such tactics are unavailable, it is possible that fighting directly may lead to her defeat. Utilizing sniping can cause her to falter when suddenly forced into close combat, as returning to her true method of attack leaves her unable to draw her sword and respond properly due to focusing on her arrows. Magecraft Ayano is a magus at her core relying on her one spell, Vijñaptimātratā, to fight. Despite being a skilled combatant, her true unique strength lies within the manufacturing of weapons rather than their use. Her abilities in combat are unremarkable overall, utilizing Reinforcement with difficulty and the "structural analysis" step of projection more often than anything else. Only Projection had any worth, having granted her the many Noble Phantasms and combat skills they hold. Aside from Projection, she can also use magic detection and magic resistance, which are considered very basic. She does not posses the ability to utilize offensive magecraft that work around the lines of nature interference. Her white hair, and gray eyes are a side effect of extensively using Projection Magecraft. She has weak Magic Resistance, that is only the equivalent of an anti-magic amulet. She can nullify spells of D tier, but anything higher than that will annul the resistance. It can easily be overcome by a relatively strong magus, as her affinity with magecraft is much worse than most of the other students. She may have been a magus possessing the unusual Projection magecraft, but the students of Mana Central are those who see magecraft as commonplace. Due to that resulting in her low ability, even spells greater than C tier can be fatal to her. Without any support, she is at a serious disadvantage against a spellcasters. Those capable of great sorceries and ritual spells, and even spells from magi must be watched carefully. When holding both Gān Jiàng and Mò Yé, her magic resistance is improved, and she proves capable of deflecting even A tier spells, though they still pose fatal danger should they strike her. Eye of the Mind Eye of the Mind (True) is a danger-avoidance ability that utilizes the intelligence collected up to the current time as the basis to predict the opponent’s activity and change the current situation. Most opponents cannot be matched in direct combat under normal circumstances. They are too fast and strong for her to last more than a few blows before falling to their strength, should she take them on without any strategy. She reads the oncoming attacks and counterattacks ahead of time, constantly thinking tens of steps ahead in order continuously prolong her survival by seconds in avoiding blows, parrying, and striking back without being overwhelmed. It is "combat logic" that utilizes calm analysis to take information obtained from the current situation and enemy's abilities to make predictions, and makes use of her cultivated battle experience to plan her attack. In spite of danger, she takes consideration of all possible actions in a particular situation, and if there is even a one percent chance of a comeback, the ability improves the chances of success. Her nerves of steel, her mind's eye obtained through experience, is nothing extraordinary compared to a veteran fighter's instinct, but noted to be the only other skill that she possesses, a 'weapon' wielded by a mortal that anyone can gain through tenacious training. It is the result of an overwhelming amount of combat experience, allowing her to see even Risako's thrusts, fast enough that they are not visible to even her honed eyes. Though Risako is far superior, Ayano is able to guide the fight to her advantage through her experience, utilizing her inferiority as a weapon to control the attacks coming at her. Ayano battles such opponents by leaving fatal openings, dodging them and risking instant death instead of slowly being cut up, which would ensure her loss as the fight drags out. Through battle, she is able to think of at least thirty ways to "show an opening", and this allows her to match Risako's onslaught without being overwhelmed. Although she should not be a match because she should only be able to put up a true fight as a long-range archer and holds no prospect for victory in close combat, she is able to block Risako's full force strikes.